Charles Spurgeon Commentary Matthew 7:9-10

"Or what man is there of you, who, if his son shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone; or if he shall ask for a fish, will give him a serpent?" — Matthew 7:9-10 (ASV)

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?

Our Lord will give us the real thing. Sometimes we should be quite satisfied with the imitation of it.

And sometimes we have to wait and be prepared for the reception of the real thing; it is infinitely better for us to wait for months than immediately to get a stone; better to wait for a fish than the next moment to have a scorpion.

There were some in the wilderness who asked to be satisfied, and so they were, with the flesh of quails. They got their stones; they got their scorpions.

But the Lord's people may sometimes find that they have to wait a while. God will not give them anything that is other than good for them.

In temporal things we make blunders and ask for that as bread which we think is so, when in truth it is a stone. We mistake a serpent for an eel and beg for it as a fish. Our heavenly Father will correct our prayer and give us, not what we ignorantly seek, but what we really need.

The promise to give what we ask is here explained and set in its true light. This is a gracious correction of the folly that would read the Lord’s words in the most literal sense and make us dream that every whim of ours had only to put on the dress of prayer for its realization. Our prayers go to heaven in a Revised Version. It would be a terrible thing if God always gave us all we asked for. Our heavenly Father Himself knows how to give far better than we know how to ask.